


The Matched Set

by Dawen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical major character death, Gen, Nothing explicit, agender George Weasley, some minor transphobia and misgendering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-03 20:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14003973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawen/pseuds/Dawen
Summary: Once satisfied no one else would overhear them, George scootched closer to Fred and leaned in closer. Fred followed, twin red heads bent together and nearly touching. "I'm not a boy," George whispered....They became a matched set, always together. People simply couldn't talk about one without talking about the other.They became a "they."(Or, George is an agender person without the appropriate words to describe anything, but the twins do the best they can.)





	The Matched Set

**Author's Note:**

> Do you have _any idea_ how hard it is to write a story with narrative that doesn't use pronouns for a major character _at all_. Because I am here to tell you, it is very hard.
> 
> This story was literally borne of me reading a ton of fics where it's kind of awful that people treat the Weasley twins as one person in two bodies, and they don't appreciate it but they do put up with it, and I just went, "... But what if they _did_ want it?"
> 
> I am agender most of the time myself, but I don't experience very much dysphoria like George does. If I got something wrong or offensive, please let me know.

Fred Weasley was five years old when his twin turned to him and whispered, "Mum scares me."

Fred frowned. George looked startlingly serious, brown eyes big and worried. They'd just been kicked out of the house while Mum talked with Aunt Dione and had taken the opportune time to run out to the orchard, climbing the oldest persimmon tree and gathering the mushiest fruits to throw at Charlie and Percy. The kicking out wasn't any reason to be scared, though. It happened all the time when Mum and Dad wanted to talk grownup stuff. Mum hadn't even had to punish them in a whole two days, which was probably a record. "Why?"

George stretched out for another persimmon, knocking snow off of the branch, and carefully put it in the rucksack before answering. "You know how cousin Thaddeus is cousin Shelley now?"

Fred nodded. Shelley had made the announcement a whole week ago, at her birthday party so she could tell the whole family at once. Half the grownups had gotten upset and the other half had just sat there in shock. Fred didn't see the big deal. Even Ronnie, who was only three, had seen that Shelley looked happier as Shelley than she ever had as Thaddeus.

"Mum got really mad," George said.

Fred settled down into the crook of two branches and nodded again. "Well, yeah. She mucked up the party. Mum always gets mad when someone mucks up a special thing she made."

"She's still mad, though."

Fred squinted at George. "How d'you know?"

"She an' Aunt Dione were yellin' 'bout it when I went back for my gloves."

"Oh," Fred said, mollified. "Why's that scare you, though?"

" _You_  know she only stays mad for a day or two!"

"Sure, but what's Shelley got to do with us? She's so old."

George hunched in a little, shoulders curling inward. "Mum's mad because Shelley's not a boy like everyone thought she was. And I - " George broke off, peering around the snowy ground of the orchard like when they were planning tricks. Once satisfied no one else would overhear them, George scootched closer to Fred and leaned in closer. Fred followed, twin red heads bent together and nearly touching. "I'm not a boy," George whispered.

Fred jolted back a bit in surprise, nearly losing his balance on the persimmon branch. George yelped and leaned forward to clap both hands over Fred's wrist. In the kerfuffle, the rucksack of mushy persimmons slid out of the tree and landed in the snow with a juicy plop.

Both twins stared down at the rucksack mournfully for a couple heartbeats. Then Fred turned to stare at George again. "So you're really a girl like Shelley, then?"

George looked up to meet Fred's eyes, then back down at the ground. "Er, no. Not a girl either."

Fred's forehead furrowed in confusion. "But if you're not a boy and you're not a girl, then what are you?"

George shrugged, still staring at the ground. "I dunno. Just a person, I suppose."

"Oh. Well. I suppose we just don't tell Mum you're not a boy."

George's face screwed up. "I dunno if I can keep quiet forever, though."

"Why not?" Fred asked, hitching himself up to get comfortable in the tree again. He hooked one leg around the branch to keep stable.

"It's..." George shrugged. "It bothers me. When people talk."

"You mean like why Shelley changed her name even though being called Thaddeus didn't change her from being a girl?"

George nodded, almost frantic. "Yeah, exactly. I don't mind bein' George but I hate bein' a him."

Fred drummed his free heel against the tree trunk, thinking. "But you can't be a her either, can you? You said you're not a girl."

George nodded twice, slower than before.

"Huh. This'll take some plannin', George."

George glanced up. "Dunno what I could do, anyway. Mum doesn't like it."

"She doesn't hafta know..."

"She does if I'm not a him anymore!"

Fred stared up at the low clouds, turning an idea over and over in his head. "But what if - " He leaned forward again, and whispered in his twin's ear. George listened intently, and started to grin.

~

They treated it like a long, involved prank. It was both absolutely a prank and nothing at all like a prank, but it seemed to help George. For the first few months, Fred tried telling his twin that it was like being a super-secret Unspeakable spy, having to fill a specific roll that wasn't true but still necessary. 

Then the longer-range part of their plan started to kick in. 

Since that first day in the orchard, a week after Shelley Weasley's nineteenth birthday, the little Weasley twins were utterly inseparable. They had been close before, of course, but they would still go haring off on separate courses and plots half the time. Where once it was a coin toss if both would be punished for any particular trick, now it was certain. Where once seeing one twin without the other didn't give any clues as to where the other was, now it most often meant the other was hiding behind the corner to trigger a prank.

Where once they were called "little Fred and George Weasley, you know, the twins," now they were called "FredandGeorge Weasley."

They became a matched set, always together. People simply couldn't talk about one without talking about the other.

They became a "they."

It took work, of course, lots of work in their room with the door shut, practicing the few mannerisms they didn't share until, finally, they could easily switch each other out. Where once Mum could tell Fred from George by the way Fred sucked his thumb, or George played with hat tassles or mittens, now she couldn't because George could suck a thumb just like Fred and Fred could play with tassles and mittens just like George. They practiced their expressions in the bathroom mirror, and the way they walked, and how they held their forks, until it was second nature to copy each other exactly and no one could tell them apart.

"See," Fred said, "if you can't be an Unspeakable spy, just be _me_  instead!"

It was a lot of work. But the longer they kept at it, the longer they switched themselves out and the longer they served punishments for tricks they'd played together, the more they were referred to as a set, as "they," instead of by themselves as individuals. The longer they kept at it, the less George was referred to as "he."

George was happier, with lighter shoulders as though a weight had been taken off, and Fred knew that all that work and extra punishments and exhausting practice sessions - it was all worth it to see his twin like this, like cousin Shelley looked whenever someone called her "she" instead of "he."

It was worth it.

~

It wasn't perfect, of course. Sometimes George was still called "he" and they both knew that being called "they" because George was part of a matched set wasn't the same as being called something - anything - but "he" or "she" because people knew that George wasn't a boy or a girl.

"Fred, I don't think I can't keep up pretendin' forever," George said quietly. The twins had just turned seven. It was late at night and they were supposed to have been asleep for hours, but Fred had turned the light out only five minutes ago.

Fred rolled over to face the open edge of the bunk bed. "You don't gotta," he murmured. "Shelley didn't, did she?"

"Easier for her, though. She was gettin' married to someone who already knew, and anyway. She could tell people she's a she. I still don't know what I am, just what I'm not."

"We'll move out when we're seventeen, it'll practically be the same as gettin' married."

"To where? How could we have enough money?"

"We'll open a shop!" Fred suggested enthusiastically. "All the shops at Diagon Alley have flats above them!"

"What'll we sell?" George asked. Fred could hear a bit of a smile, dragged out against George's will.

"Who knows? We've got _years_  to figure it out yet." Fred let his arm dangle over the edge of the mattress. George laughed and reached up to touch his hand.

~

"Seriously, though. What d'you call me when I'm not around?" George pressed. They were ten and George had kept asking about this every few months since the night they'd decided to be shop owners.

"George or my twin."

George made a face, helped along by the Fizzing Whizbies the twins were sharing. "Really?"

Fred flung out his arms. "Well, you're not a him! What else am I supposed to use?"

"You're supposed to figure that out so _I'll_  know!"

Fred stuck his tongue out. "Too bad."

George laughed breathlessly and flopped back against the grass. They were out in the orchard again, starfished out underneath a pear tree and watching the clouds between the branches. "You think anyone would take me seriously if I told them to just use my name?" George asked, wriggling around to get comfortable.

Fred hummed a bit, squinting at a cloud that looked surprisingly like a Jarvey. "George, they won't take you seriously just because you're a Weasley twin and we're never serious."

George snorted. "Yeah, alright. What if I weren't a Weasley twin, though?"

Fred turned his head to stare at his twin. "You really think you wouldn't be a prankster just because you'd happen to not have a twin?"

George laughed.

"Really, though," Fred continued thoughtfully, "it's not exactly a common request, is it? You'd have to ask the right sort. Little kids and folks like Shelley and such."

"You sayin' you wouldn't use just my name?" George demanded, mock-furious, half-rising on one elbow.

"You as good as asked me when I was a little kid, oh twin of mine," Fred countered with a lazy grin.

George made a thoughtful noise in the throat, and flopped back down on the grass. A freckled hand crept into the candy bag laying between them. Fred returned his attention back to the sky. "So I was thinking," he started. "About the shop. What if it was a joke shop?"

"There's one already, isn't there?"

"In Hogsmeade. There's not one in Diagon Alley, and that's where the shops have flats, anyway."

George sat up properly, a sudden surge from a prone position. Fred saw his twin squinting at him from the corner of his eye. "That means we'll need to make our own jokes."

Fred grinned and nodded. George grinned back.

By now they were so good at appearing to share a mind that neither one had to suggest starting to plumb the depths of their older brothers' school books for interesting effects. They were on their feet and running, almost perfectly in sync, the candy bag dangling from George's hand.

~

The first month at Hogwarts, George got quiet and a little sullen. Fred was the only one that could tell, and he already knew what the cause was anyway.

People kept insisting on trying to treat them individually. 

The twins put extra effort into their matched set, sharing-a-brain scheme, and everyone but Professor McGonagall gave up before Halloween. Even she gave it up as a lost cause by Christmas, when she sighed and told them they ought to try out as Beaters next year, because they'd be naturals with their shared brain.

It got better again, slowly, as people got used to the Weasley twins being a perfect matched set. Fred was a little more outspoken, a little more flashy, being the distraction more often than George, and otherwise stuck to his twin like a burdock burr. They took Sunday afternoons to themselves, closeting away with advanced texts, writing recipes and doing calculations to make sure their pranks weren't hazardous. 

They had a life of liberation to plan for, after all.

~

"Are you still okay being George?" Fred asked curiously. They were sixteen and really starting to work out the kinks in their first prank candy. George stood over a huge text, busily scribbling notes into a half-blank bound book Fred had picked up at the second-hand shop. Fred was in front of their potions supply chest, supposedly taking inventory.

It seemed to take a few seconds for Fred's question to register in George's mind. "What do you mean?" George eventually asked. "I told you yes, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but I wanted to make sure nothing changed, is all."

"You think it would?"

"I thought maybe, the longer we're at Hogwarts, maybe the more George would feel like a boy's name instead of a person's name." Fred glanced over his shoulder at his twin and shrugged haplessly. "Come on, my twin, it's not like I have a whole lot of experience for what this feels like."

"No, you don't," George agreed absently. There was a pause as George scribbled another sentence down. "Anyway, there's George Kelley a year above us, and George Mason a year above that. They're both girls. Mason was even identified properly. George is fine."

"Okay," Fred said agreeably, and started actually taking inventory.

~

The Day of Success started like any other, primarily by setting traps for Umbridge and her Slytherin toadies. Breakfast was usual, until the morning post. But then, most important days went as usual until the morning post.

George was the one who caught the letter from a particularly careless owl, and eagerly tore it open. A bright beam spread across identical faces, one a half second behind the first, because as soon as George started grinning Fred knew what the letter said.

"We got the lease?" Fred asked anyway. Confirmation never hurt.

"We got the lease," George repeated. The official document was waved in front of Fred's nose. "We got the lease!"

They cheered in unison, because they were still a matched set all these years later, and in less than a week they were gone from Hogwarts.

~

They left Hogwarts just a little bit later, still a matched set, by giving Umbridge the proverbial finger. Fred let George lead the way out of Hogwarts’ hallowed halls, flying into a future of happier days and less misgendering and a better life, a life of liberation like they’d been planning since they were five.

A life of liberation that depended on two halves of a matched set.

Now, as Fred saw the curse coming, he wondered if George could ever have what they’d dreamed of without the other half of the set.

**Author's Note:**

> :)


End file.
